Boxing: No joshing as Taylor faces box-off for Games place

Amateur Boxing Scotland chief Richard Thomas gave the boxer the news and his coach Terry McCormack responded: "The box-off between Josh and Ryan Smith has been mooted for 14 May in Kirkcaldy at the British Schoolboys Championships and that suits us because we will be asking for neutral English and Welsh judges to score.

"Smith will be no pushover as he trained for several months in Cuba with world-class boxing coaches and he also looked good last month winning the Scottish title at Coatbridge but we're confident that Taylor can still beat him to a Commonwealth boxing team place."

Meanwhile, Taylor said: "I've sparred with Smith at international Scottish training camps in Malta and elsewhere. He's a very good technical boxer but I aim to beat him as I've dreamt of boxing for Scotland in the Games for a while now."

And 6 June really will be D-Day for Mark Geraghty and his Queensferry boxers as he confirmed: "We are staging another boxing show in Hibernian FC's Easter Road stadium hospitality suite against an Irish team from Armagh, Bishop Kelly's ABC, who we entertained successfully last year and we will be featuring our new Chinese featherweight Du Zeng on the 12-bout bill, which we expect to be a sell-out like our last show in Easter Road last November."

Meanwhile, former Queensferry bantamweight Dave Cowan will make his paid debut as a Tommy Gilmour camp fighter against a selected opponent in Glenrothes on Friday, 4 June. Mark Geraghty, himself a former Gilmour-managed pro, confirmed: "I'll continue to coach and train Dave Cowan in the paid ranks so I'll be in his corner for his debut."